Have at it.
Base, How Low Can You Go?
What you saw:
What they saw:
C’mon, wingnuts, quit nancying around and just call them sluts. Remember the good old days when the Republicans were all up in arms about outsiders getting in between patients and their doctors?
At any rate, the reason Santorum and the rest of the clown car parade in the GOP are still hammering home on contraceptives, despite the fact that the majority of the nation thinks they look crazy, is because it resonates with the base. They love this stuff. And what the base wants, the GOP “leaders” gives them.
And yes, “SEX CRAZED COEDS GOING BROKE BUYING BIRTH CONTROL” does sound like a movie on Cinemax at 1 am on Saturday.
Open Thread
I finally gave up on reading Sullivan’s political stuff for the sake of my blood pressure (for example), but his staff does once in a while find the kind of link that reminds me why god created the internet. This twitter feed from a spam-bot promoting a crudely hacked-together site that sells e-books is transcendental.
Chat about whatever.
***Update***
Don’t know why the links did not copy right, but fixed now.
Informed consent
Anti-choice activists and religious leaders have some brand new poll-tested language on “informed consent” and “empowering women” that they’re all parroting in unison, but words should mean something, so let’s look at how this branding only applies in certain situations:
Virginia:
“Informed consent has always been to make sure that a woman has the right to all the information. Not just some of it, but all of it,” Del. Kathy Byron, R-Lynchburg, told CBN News.
Byron sponsored the House version of Virginia’s ultrasound bill.
Pennsylvania:
Pennsylvania House Bill 1077, entitled The Women’s Right to Know Act, is advancing in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. The bill empowers women by offering truly informed consent before an abortion by providing the opportunity for a woman to view the ultrasound image of her child and observe the heartbeat.
“For too long, women have been pressured into making a decision on abortion without having all the facts,” said Maria Vitale Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation. “In order to make an informed decision, women must be given relevant information about the development of the child in the womb, and this legislation helps to provide that.”
Alabama:
Alabama law provides that abortions may be performed only with the voluntary and
informed consent of the patient. This form (front and back) is important to ensure that you have been provided all the information you need to make a fully informed decision. Please complete the form truthfully and accurately.
That’s nice “empowering” language on the Alabama form, don’t you think? The presumption is the woman is lying, because, you know, all women lie, constantly.
Here’s a very sensible informed consent law that oddly doesn’t “empower” women, apparently, and if you dare to so much as bring it up, you’ll be called a Nazi, even if you’re both a physician and an elected representative:
Hospitals with religious objections to procedures such as abortions would have to tell patients in a special notice Colorado’s Senate approved Friday.
The measure was approved over vigorous objections from Senate Republicans, who called the notification bill a thinly veiled attempt to stigmatize religious hospitals.
The bill, which requires one more procedural vote before it heads to the House, would require hospitals to tell patients that any service not provided because of religious beliefs or moral convictions can be obtained from another hospital.
Such services could include abortions, but also sexual health procedures such as vasectomies or tubal ligations. They could also include visitation opportunities for same-sex partners.
The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Sen. Morgan Carroll, of Aurora, said the notices are needed because hospital consolidations can confuse patients about where to get certain services.
“It’s really about a patient’s right to know,” Carroll said.
Republicans strongly objected to Carroll’s proposal, which passed on a narrow voice vote. Some compared the requirements to the religious labeling used in Nazi Germany.
“It’s putting in place a not-so-subtle message that you’re second-class if you have a moral scruple based on religious principles,” said Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud.
Democratic Sen. Irene Aguilar countered that hospitals would not be stigmatized.
“I think most of these hospitals are proud of the choices they’ve made,” said Aguilar, who is a physician.
Lundberg held his ground.
“It’s none of the state’s business, period, what institutions do or don’t do based on their religious convictions,” said Lundberg, who described the bill as “bending over backward for the abortion industry.”
Nazis! My goodness. What happened to informed consent? I’m not feeling very empowered. Why don’t Republicans and religious leaders want women to know the facts prior to choosing a certain health care provider? Maybe it’s easy to discover which giant corporate entity (now) owns the single general hospital in any given county?
The transfer agreement to purchase Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge and Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette calls for eliminating controversial patient services, including abortions, tubal ligation and vasectomies. With Lutheran Medical being the only general hospital in Jefferson County, controversy has mounted.
The long litigious battle over money, medicine and ethics has been going on for years.
The original deal called for the Community First Foundation to receive $311 million from the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth and for sponsorship to be transferred. In 2007, Republican Attorney General John Suthers issued an opinion that gave the go-ahead for the sale. But an arbitrator earlier this year blocked the deal, ruling that assets stemming from the sale belong to the community — not to the hospitals’ non-profit co-sponsors.
Tatten did little to defend the Catholic hospital system, instead arguing that the greater issue is national health reform. But after the event, he told the Denver Daily that perhaps more could have been done in the area of transparency, such as holding voluntary public hearings. That being said, Tatten said the sale has been so complicated that public hearings likely wouldn’t have been helpful.
“Often times with public hearings people feel that if they participate and they share their view, that someone will consider it and they have an impact on an outcome,” he said. “But, I think in this type of situation, it was so structured and so legalistic.”
Women are too stupid to make decisions on abortion without anti-abortion activists mandating compliance with a whole host of new rules and forms and invasive medical procedures and brand new causes of action in both the civil and criminal system. That’s informed consent. On the other hand, they’re somehow smart enough to parse the opaque negotiations of multi-million dollar “structured and legalistic” mergers of giant health care companies, and besides, even if they can’t, health care is none of their business, and they’re Nazis if they want a simple disclosure statement provided prior to admission.
Late Night Open Thread: Barney Frank “Endorses” Rick Santorum
(via ThinkProgress)
… because “I think we can beat Santorum even if the Devil stays out of it.” Representative Frank always gives good interview, bless him.
If your dead soul stern personal philosophy forbids you to take pleasure in other peoples’ wedding plans, the relevant question is at the 3:50 mark.
Late Night Open Thread: Barney Frank “Endorses” Rick SantorumPost + Comments (24)
Berenstain bears
I loved the Berenstain bears when I was kid, and I was sad to see that the creator of the series died recently. Apparently, Charles Krauthammer didn’t like the Berenstain bears so much (note: he wrote this a while ago, not right after the creator of the series died):
It is not just the smugness and complacency of the stories that is so irritating. That is a common affliction of children’s literature. The raging offense of the Berenstains is the post-feminist Papa Bear, the Alan Alda of grizzlies, a wimp so passive and fumbling he makes Dagwood Bumstead look like Batman.
[….]Mother Bear, too, is a creation. Every adult will recognize her as the final flowering of the grade-school prissy, the one with perfect posture and impeccable handwriting. The one the teachers loved. The one who disdained your baloney sandwich and pulled from salad out of her lunch box, minding her cholesterol in 1958. The one you always dreamt of drowning.
This is why I think conservatism is doomed. They can’t even watch a fucking cartoon without overlaying it with some crazy aggrieved male mythology. I don’t think most people have the time or energy for this kind of exegesis. Maybe I’m wrong.